Who Knew?
by Snafu1000
Summary: In the middle of investigating the Calamity, a veteran auror encounters a familiar face. Books/movies/Hogwarts Mystery/Wizards Unite mashup


_**Author's Note:** The media-mashing muse goes rogue again. My first foray into the Potterverse, all of which besides Quinn Casey belongs to JK Rowling. Credit to the song by Pink for the title and mood. Elements/spoilers from books, movies, & Hogwarts Mystery/Wizards Unite mobile games included. Longer notes at the end, as usual._

* * *

"Trust me, Constance: a baby hippogriff really ought to be ranked above 'Low' on the threat scale."

"You really think so, Quinn?" Constance Pickering regarded me quizzically. A lifetime spent straddling both worlds, and it still surprised me just how little so many witches and wizards knew about the Muggles that they existed alongside every day. "It's not simply the threat of discovery by the Muggles, you know. It's the difficulty that each Foundable poses to capture. The baby hippogriff really is quite a dear, from all reports."

Which was true enough. Once you used _meteolojinx recanto_ to undo the storm Confoundable, the little fellow was downright affable and seemed more than ready to be returned to Hogwarts. "Still, we might want to think about weighting the determination. The Hogwarts students aren't going to draw any attention on a streetcorner, and no one is likely to look twice at a quaffle, or even a kneazle, but a hippogriff -"

"Oh, Muggles are always looking right through what they don't expect to see," Constance said in that dismissive way that was the common wizarding reaction to people who didn't have magic. Being a half-blood, I had a somewhat different perspective. Muggles weren't all bad, they weren't all dumb, and they definitely weren't all blind, but they did have an unfortunate tendency to react with a herd instinct that favored panic when something did spook them.

Which wasn't all that different from their magical counterparts, though few cared to be reminded of it.

"If that were all there was to it, we wouldn't be doing this," I pointed out, pulling the enchanted iPhone out of my pocket (I had yet to convince any of my magical colleagues that they might have utility beyond tracing Foundables, though I had gotten Arthur Weasley addicted to Candy Crush).

"There is that," she conceded. "I'll ask Ms. Granger what she thinks."

Good enough for me. Hermione was Muggle-born, as levelheaded as they came, and deeply involved in developing the enchantments used to track, return and catalog the Foundables that had been released by the Calamity. As an Auror, I was mainly interested in what – or who – had caused it all in the first place, and how it tied in to five of my colleagues going missing, but the few clues we had managed to gather so far on that score had been located along with the Foundables.

Sooo …

"Oi! Casey!" I looked up to where Pete Dawlish was manning the dispatch desk. "You're up! Trace cluster in the Underground." 'Up' as in on call; I'd already put in a full day, but it was my turn to take the trace alerts that popped after hours. Bit of a pain, but the uninterrupted sleep on the nights that I was off more than made up for it.

He waved his wand, and I held my phone over my head, intercepting the locator charm that he sent across the room, snatching it back just as a trio of interdepartmental memos zoomed by in tight formation.

"Good luck!" Constance called cheerfully as I grabbed my coat and headed for the door. Outside, the sky was overcast and already deepening toward dusk, with a smattering of tiny snowflakes twirling in the air, undecided whether to fall or evaporate. I lifted my face gratefully, breathing deeply of the cold air, glad to be out of the confines of the Ministry. I'd been an Auror for twenty-seven years, never been anything else, never wanted to be anything else. Most of the ones who had started with me – and quite a few of those who had started after me – had left the field for administrative duties or teaching positions.

The ones who had survived, that is.

I was no Mad-Eye Moody (I'd manged to keep both eyes and all my limbs, though I did have a few interesting scars here and there), but I had a solid reputation as someone who got the job done, and I fully intended to stay in the field as long as I was able.

Traveling by Tube was old hat, and the introduction of the enchanted phones made it even easier to fit in. I was just another Muggle nose-down to my screen as I navigated the steps and barriers, working my way to the edge of the crowd on the platform. The charm indicated that the traces were located in the tunnels, and the Muggle authorities tended to frown on people wandering about at will down there. I waited for a train to arrive and the resulting bustle of people getting off and on, their attention focused on their destinations, to slip my wand from a pocket and perform a quick disillusionment charm before slipping down the tunnel just after the train pulled out. Not as strong a concealment as an invisibility spell, but it was easier to maintain while pursuing other activities, and it would fool the motion detectors, as well as the cameras that lined the tunnels.

The competition between magic and technology remained tight, but magic kept its razor thin lead, and I spent a few relatively peaceful hours in the tunnels, stepping carefully over the third rail, flattening myself against the wall when the trains blasted past, and collecting Foundable traces. One baby niffler, one Ravenclaw student (I looked him up once: his name was Rolf Edwards, he was very much alive, married with three children, and highly embarrassed to have a long-ago mishap in herbology class put on repeated display for the entire wizarding world), a boggart cabinet, a bludger and two doxies later, the trace charm led me toward Down Street Station and a high threat level trace that seemed to be the last of this cluster. My luck was holding; since its days as Churchill's bunker in World War 2, the station saw little public traffic apart from historical tours, and none of those were likely at this hour.

Emerging from the tunnel, I saw the dementor first, hovering over the platform. It looked real: all shadows and fluttering rags; pale, grasping claws and gaping, hungry mouth. It even felt a little real, from the sudden deepening chill in the air to the ill-defined sense of malaise that seeped into me. It might have fooled someone who hadn't faced down the real thing.

The vibration beneath my feet and the rush of air from the tunnel provided their warning, and I pressed myself back against the wall to let the train pass in a flicker of light from the windows and faces mostly turned to their own distractions: books and phones and chats and daydreams. Even without the disillusionment charm, it was unlikely that any of them would have noticed me. I waited for a second after it was gone before hopping across one third rail, then the other, and clambering over the edge of the platform. I rolled to my feet on the dusty concrete, wand out, and nearly dropped it as I finally caught sight of what the dementor confoundable had been guarding.

Tonks. Looking just as she had in our early days at the Ministry: long coat, combat boots, fingerless gloves and lavender hair. On the ground with wand outstretched and the dementor hovering over her menacingly.

I knew it wasn't really her. I knew the theories about how the Foundables were just fragments of thought and memory snatched from the collective consciousness and given form by the chaotic magic that the Calamity had unleashed. More to the point, I knew that she'd been dead for twenty years. None of that kept it from feeling as though every last molecule of air had been sucked out of that abandoned platform.

"_Expecto patronum_." The words of the charm escaped me in a croak, and I wasn't surprised when not even a spark emerged from my wand. Even against fake dementors, a Patronus charm wasn't easy, particularly when you'd been sucker-punched, and I could all but hear Moody roaring in my head.

_Get off yer arse and cast like you mean it, girl!_

I lifted my wand again, reaching for the powerful, happy memories that were the key, but all I could see was her lying dead beside Remus in the rubble of Hogwarts, and it was the old rage and grief that rose up in me now. I'd not told Molly Weasley and never would, but I'd never quite forgiven her for killing Bellatrix Lestrange before I could do the job.

"_Expecto patronum!_"

Magic flowed from the wand in a silvery wisp: an incorporeal Patronus, barely worthy of the name. I'd cast enough squib spells against Confoundables by now that I recognized the slip-sliding sensation as the power swirled against the dementor and dissipated.

If I kept failing, there was a chance that the Foundable would dissipate, as well; it had happened to me before, and the higher level ones tended to vanish more quickly than the lower levels. If it didn't, would I have to watch as the dementor sucked away her soul while I cast spell after spell? Neither option was one I was willing to accept. My head knew that what I was seeing was an artifact of magic and memory, but my heart and my gut hadn't gotten the memo. I'd failed my best friend at the Battle of Hogwarts; damned if I would fail her now.

I set my feet shoulder width apart and drew a breath, forcing air into a chest that felt as though it had been caught in a vise. Digging in, I reached deep, past the pain and anger, and found the memories that I sought.

_Spiky, bubblegum-pink hair, artfully ripped Hufflepuff sweater and wide grin the first day we met._

_Honeydukes and Zonko's and butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. Eating together in the Great Hall. Sneaking out together after hours to search for clues to the Cursed Vaults, or to set up pranks, or just for the joy of getting away with it._

_Casting my first Patronus under her tutelage my fourth year, standing side by side with her, driving off a dementor, both of us barely fifteen._

_Helping her buckle down to her studies when she realized she'd need good marks to be an Auror, but still finding time for pranks. Hugging her hard when we found out we'd both been accepted as Aurors._

_Her face beaming with joy on the day that she married Remus, transported with fierce pride and wonder as she gazed down at Teddy in her arms for the first time._

"_EXPECTO PATRONUM_!" The words burst from me in a roar that started somewhere around my toes. The tip of my wand flared in a burst of silver as the otter that was my corporeal Patronus sprang forth, bounding toward the dementor, which shrank back with a thin shriek and spun away into nothingness. The otter gamboled about for another moment or two, then faded in a last flare of silver, leaving me alone with Tonks.

Another train rattled past, but I barely noticed, watching her push herself to her feet. She faced me, and our eyes met. Did she see me? Did she recognize me? There was plenty of lively debate on just how much awareness the Foundable fragments possessed, but there was no mistaking the faint smile and nod that she sent my way in the instant before she lifted her wand and twirled out of sight before I could speak. I'd never seen a Foundable do that before; they all seemed to get sucked away like water down a drain through no agency of their own, but it was just like Tonks to do things her own way.

Alone on the platform, I drew a slow breath, another, found my voice again. "I miss you," I spoke into the emptiness, feeling the tears on my cheeks. "I still miss you, damn it."

I barely remembered to tuck my wand away before I stumbled back out onto the street, made the walk back to the Ministry in a daze and sank into the chair behind my desk, too drained to even think about summoning a self-writing quill to make my entries into the trace log. I leaned back and shut my eyes, remembering again the last fierce hug between us in the courtyard before she had raced off to join Remus, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Arthur Weasley defending the Quad Battlements. A kiss pressed to my cheek (she'd grown more demonstrative since Teddy's birth), and squeeze of my hand as we drew apart, our gazes locking.

_Time to end this, Quinn. Last one to the Three Broomsticks after the fight buys!_

The old cocky grin hadn't quite made it to her eyes. We all knew the stakes and the odds. I'd stayed in the courtyard to help McGongall and Flitwick. The members of the Order of the Phoenix were spread too thinly throughout the school, shoring up the professors and students, all of us together still far outnumbered by Voldemort and his Death Eaters, while the rest of the wizarding world cowered and waited.

Not that I was bitter about that or anything.

McGonagall and Flitwick had survived. Kingsley and Arthur had survived. Tonks and Remus and far too many others had not. If I had gone with her instead of remaining in the courtyard, very little would have been changed, but it was still hard to shake the conviction that Tonks and I, fighting back to back, would have been the same unbeatable team that we'd always been, and that maybe – just maybe – it might have been enough to keep them alive.

"Quinn?"

I opened my eyes. Harry Potter was standing in front of my desk watching me with concern; for a moment, present blurred with past, and his face became that of the wide-eyed boy that Tonks and I had watched from concealment as he wandered through Diagon Alley in Hagrid's protective shadow. Nearly thirty years ago now; the Boy Who Lived was just shy of forty, and my boss: head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, concerned about one of his top Aurors.

I gave him a wan smile. "Tonks."

Comprehension washed over his features, and empathy. We'd all received our share of jolts as the Calamity's wild magic pulled Foundables from memory and history, presenting us with past versions of those both dead and alive. I'd run into Harry once after a day in which I'd encountered no less than a dozen Foundables of his younger self and cast _ebullio_ on the hapless Ministry official accompanying him before I'd realized she wasn't a Confoundable. Not one of my better moments, but we'd all had a laugh about it once we'd gotten her down from the ceiling and I'd explained myself.

"I was wondering when she'd show up," he remarked with a sad smile of his own. "I saw Sirius last week." He was no stranger to loss; no one who had lived through those years was. Even as an eighteen-year-old Auror-in-training, he'd been old beyond his years, experienced beyond his years, determined beyond his years, and his rapid advancement had surprised no one. "Took me two tries before I could conjure my Patronus."

"Three for me." No great surprise that he'd recovered more quickly than I had, either; his years at Hogwarts had been even more of a trial by fire than my own. "Did you know that she taught me the Patronus charm in our fourth year?" I asked him.

The eyebrow beneath the famous scar arched with interest, and his smile became a bit less sad. "I didn't. Where did she learn it?"

"Taught herself."

His smile broadened at that, closer to the grin that the long-ago boy had worn. "That sounds like her. I miss her, too," he added after a moment. I'd spent years guarding him and his classmates from afar, but we hadn't met formally until Teddy was born. I'd helped train Harry as an Auror, worked beside him in the field, reported to him now. We were friends in a not quite close sort of way: call it second friends once removed, but the survivors of the Battle of Hogwarts were still bound together twenty years on by blood shed and losses shared. Having a godson in common helped, too.

"Want to get a drink and talk?" he offered now. That sounded good; reminiscing about Tonks with someone else who had cared about her would go a long way toward easing that hollowed-out feeling that was lingering in my chest, but before I could accept, I heard Pete clearing his throat cautiously at the dispatch desk.

"Quinn ..." He gave me an apologetic look as he sent the locator charm. I caught it on my phone and pushed myself to my feet.

"Another time," I told Harry with a wry smile as I pocketed the phone. "Duty calls."

"Be careful out there," he offered in parting. More than rote words; most of the traces themselves were harmless enough, and the ones that did attack were no match for a seasoned auror, but whatever had caused the Calamity was still out there, and five seasoned aurors were still missing with no explanation. That was more than enough motivation to keep me on my toes, but the thing that weighed on me the most as I headed back out to find that the snow had begun to fall in earnest was the prospect of encountering Tonks again. I wasn't sure if I dreaded it or wanted it to happen. Not that it mattered either way; the traces didn't ask permission or take preferences into account. They just were.

Maybe I'd try to talk to her next time. Foundables didn't try to communicate with the world around them as a rule, but if anyone would break that rule, it would be Nymphadora Tonks.

* * *

_**A.N.** \- I was thirty when Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone was published and thirty-three when the movie was released. I loved the stories and movies (my brother and I still have regular marathons), but I never really identified with any of the main characters enough to get the plot bunnies hopping, but Tonks was favorite of mine from the beginning, and Natalia Tena did an awesome job of bringing the character to life with the limited screen time she was given._

_The two mobile games have actually been fairly entertaining, and having Tonks as a classmate (and my character's BFF – sorry, Rowan) in Hogwarts Mystery was enough to nudge me toward a story idea of what Quinn Casey and her classmates were up to during the events in the Harry Potter books. Not going to start it until I finish that game, which might be a bit, since the devs are still building Year 6 as we go (but it's a free game, so I'm not complaining). Wizards Unite has been fun, as well, and the first time I encountered the Tonks foundable, I knew that it would hit Quinn like a gut punch, which led to the one-shot above. Which will stay a one-shot unless the story being hinted at in the game starts pulling me toward any ideas._

_For now, this particular plot bunny has been fed and put to bed, so I can get back to my other projects._


End file.
